Heaton Moor 9 Burnage 18

Moor entertained neighbours Burnage at Green Lane on Tuesday night for a quarter-final game in the Lancashire County R.F.U. ‘Brian Leigh’ Trophy competition in the first floodlit match to be held at the club since the installation of full-pitch lighting as part of the sports club redevelopment. This was also the first time the sides had met for four years as they now play at different levels in the league; Burnage being one division higher than Moor. The game should have originally been played back in November at Burnage, but due to bad weather then and a subsequent backlog of matches since, this was the first convenient opportunity for the game to take place and it was switched to Green Lane to make use of the lights.

Moor kicked off and for the first half had most of the possession and position, but could not find a way through a very solid Burnage defence. On the occasions when they did have the ball, the visitors tended to over-elaborate resulting in errors, thus gifting the ball back to Moor. The home side’s pack was also very solid in the scrums and was equally comfortable at line-outs, features that have been somewhat inconsistent this season, and the loose play was excellent, the one area that has usually been good all year. With this forward dominance, the back line had an ample supply of ball, keeping the opposition on the defensive for long periods and causing the latter a few problems early on. Moor failed with a penalty kick in the first ten minutes and a few minutes later had centre Calum Fielding replaced as a result of an injury due to a dangerous tackle, resulting in the Burnage player involved being yellow-carded. Despite this handicap, on making their first incursion into the Moor 22 midway through the half, the visitors were awarded a penalty kick, but this drifted wide. Moor continued to press, but the rearranged midfield was now providing less of a threat than earlier in the half and the opposition’s defence ably dealt with these attacks. Moor missed another penalty kick before scrum-half Shaun Stirrup slotted his third attempt just before the break to take a hard-fought 3-0 lead at the interval.

Within ten minutes following the resumption, Burnage had opened their account with a penalty kick, whereas Moor failed with two similar endeavours and had a player yellow-carded at the incident that resulted in Burnage’s successful attempt. Even with a man down, Moor again went ahead with another Stirrup penalty and just as it seemed as if they had survived this numerical disadvantage, the visitors took the lead, one that they did not relinquish, as they managed to create an overlap and score a converted try out wide. This seemed to provide them with a boost and from that point they had the distinct edge for the rest of the game, although they were again reduced to 14 men for a while as a result of a second yellow card. Moor did manage to reduce the deficit to a single point during this period with their third successful penalty kick of the evening, but this was cancelled a few minutes later by one from the opposition. Deep into injury time, Moor’s inexperience at this level was shown up when their back-row seemed to be inexplicably bound in and unable to provide any challenge to the Burnage No. 8 as he picked the ball up from the base of the scrum and proceeded to gallop away to score out wide and make the final score 18-9.